Bristol Cup Preview

Nascar heads to thunder valley this weekend as it’s time for the Food City 500, which is a 500 lap race around the half mile concrete oval known as Bristol Motor Speedway or otherwise known as the last great Colosseum. It’s going to be a cool weekend as temperatures are expected to be in the 60s but questions remain about how the tire will react this time around. Let’s get into it.

This is just the 2nd spring race in the next gen cars and I say this because I believe that was one reason as to why tire wear was so insane last spring along with the cold temps. With now a year of spring data and warmer temperatures I don’t believe that we will see the tire fall off at the rate that we saw last year. I do think there will be some wear later into a long run that falls off significantly. With the traction compound I thing track position will be important early and the bottom line will be the preferred line unless we see some tire saving mode.

I expect this race to be a race to the bottom on the initial start followed by guys trying to widen the groove. I expect the shortest runs on tires should be at the start of the race as teams continue to build on how the tire reacts and how it wears. This could lead to multiple different strategies throughout the race. I’m not expecting too many cautions as the cars are close together but spread out as well in the next gen at Bristol. Here’s who I think you should watch out for on Sunday.

Fresh off a interesting finish at Darlington, the NASCAR cup series heads to Bristol with a read hot Denny Hamlin looking to be the 2nd driver of the year and of his team (Christopher Bell) to 3 peat. Hamlin is no stranger to winning at Bristol as he is the winner of 2 of the last 3 races, including last springs tire attrition race. With momentum coming in off of back to back wins at Martinsville and Darlington, Hamlin is sure to be a threat. Kyle Larson had two top five finishes last year at Bristol including his dominant performance in the Bristol night race last summer. He is looking to turn things around after last weeks Darlington race which saw Larson uncharacteristically spin by himself early in the race, only to crash again off of contact with Bubba Wallace. Larson is also a multi time Bristol winner so this might be a good bounce back race for him. Ty Gibbs is also another driver who impressed at least in the spring race last year as it looked like he was one of the cars to beat until his tires gave up on him late in the last run, which was the longest of the race. I’m sure he’s looking forward to racing here and is hoping to continue the momentum after he got his first top 10 of the season last week.

It’s 500 laps and a lot can happen fast. The laps click off fast, the turns are banked and fast, and there is zero margin for error. Oh yeah, short track tempers can rage here as well.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daytona 500 Review

Another Daytona 500 is in the books and this one had a bit of everything. NASCAR’s Super Bowl was scheduled to start an hour early due to rain but due to some pre race festivities, the race got off to a later than desired start. A few rain delays later, we were able to see what we all tuned in Sunday for. 500 miles of high octane racing, and from start to finish you didn’t know what to expect. However what started as a day of highs ended in a day of frustration for many. Let’s look into it. The race was moved up an hour due to rain, and was scheduled to start however due to a guest appearance by the President of the United States Donald Trump, the race start was delayed. After his pre race festivities ended Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric led the field to green. The urgency level immediately looked high with rain in the area, but it wasn’t for long as the 1st caution of the race fell on lap 11 due to rain. The cars were brought down pit road where they sat and waited out the hours of ...
Read more

Cookout Clash Review

Well, the weekend has came and went for the first “unofficial” week of the 2025 NASCAR season and if anything it gave us a pleasant preview of what’s to come this season, which is intense racing. Coming into the weekend I didn’t know what to expect out of Bowman Gray stadium but the place put on a show Sunday evening. There was passing, bump and runs, tempers flaring, drivers even making the outside line work, and a fan favorite in victory lane to cap off the event. Let’s get into what all happened during the Cookout Clash. The night started off with an eventful LCQ that saw Ty Dillion and Zane smith lead the field to the green of the 75 lap race. The two were side by side until Ty gave a bump to Zane smith to move on by. Shortly after Ty Gibbs was able to get to the inside and pass Ty Dillion for the win, immediately followed by contact between Austin Dillion and Ty Dillion. So much for being brothers. In the mist of the chaos Kyle Larson was able to pass multiple cars to move u...
Read more

Nascar returns to Vegas

The real season as many call it begins this weekend as NASCAR takes to the Las Vegas motor speedway. This is the first of many tracks on the circuit that don’t run the racing packages that we saw at Daytona and Atlanta, so there is more chance to spread out and the drivers are in more control.     Drivers now have more of a opportunity to control their own destiny this weekend as now that the tapered spacers, (a part used to restrict horsepower and create pack racing), is taken off, we should see a more traditional race approach from drivers. The skill set is placed more into the drivers hands than the draft so it will be interesting to see how the points shake up this weekend.       Starting off the season with two drafting tracks has led to some heavy hitters running at the bottom half of the standings coming into this weekend like Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski, two drivers who made the playoffs last year but currently run 31st and 34th in points. The t...
Read more